Well it seems no one is interested in doing speed ascents of the rave. To spice things up a bit Orca in the City Rock climbing gym will offer a spot prize to anyone beating 3.5 hrs car to car. NO CHANCERS!!

Rope soloing can be done in many ways, it basically means using some type of system to self belay. It is fairly labourios in that you have to rap down and clean each pitch and then either jug or re-climb that pitch.

Out of interest what rope solo device did Donovan Burls use on The Rave? Feel sorry for anyone not using the Silent Partner Anyone out there using modified gri-gri's or Soloists. R2000 is alot of money, but the time saved and peace of mind makes the overall enjoment better and worth it(if you solo quite alot that is)

I did use a gri-gri, it has been modified to use with a chest harness i found it alot easier, but still a little limiting. The beauty of the gri-gri is that you can basically climb, rap and jug with-out ever taking it off the rope

I would definitely recommend using a back-up knot. Fortunately i have not had to test if the gri-gri will hold an upsidedown fall my feeling is that it will,but it would be dependent on the body position.

For a self belay aid climbing, if that is what you're talking about, the gri-gri, is great. For $70 (US) the gri-gri is a safe, reliable, and more to the point tried and proven to catch those ball cinching falls. I wear it on my belay loop along with an extra locker. Once I set my anchor off the the ground and I get 3 or 4 meters up I'll take as much rope as I'm comfortable with (rodeo slack, yee-haw) and tie a bite on the rope in front of the gri-gri, i.e. the rope your feeding, and then clip that to your extra locking biner Now assuming you don't rip marginal aid gear or generally f*ck up you're self belayed and backed-up.